Father Hardon: How to Stop the Sexual Suicide
I was sitting at my desk one day and someone came to my office door and commented that they thought I was sitting in the dark. They say that because I didn’t have the bright fluorescent lights on, but let natural light come in the window. A little while later, someone else came and said the exact same thing. I commented to them that someone just said that to me.
A little while passed, and a third person said nearly verbatim that I was sitting in the dark.
At that point, my mind didn’t go back to the second person, but the first. Déjà vu all over again, as they say.
We have moments like that in life where we’ve heard something a few times and I think our minds go back a find the first time. So it is with this little story.
I saw headlines in the past couple days that Australia is now composed of more people that say their religion is “no religion” than those that do. See, news.com.au who asks “Are we a Country of non-believers?”
I posted a link yesterday to a story wherein a Huffington post author argues that homosexuality is the best contraception.
I recently watched a documentary film called The Red Pill wherein a young documentarian set out to find out what the “rape culture” was. She rapidly discovered the so-called men’s rights movement. As she talked to these people, her views changed on feminism. (I’d be willing to write a review of the film if anyone is interested. I recommend watching it, especially if you have Amazon prime).
During that film, she interviewed a leading feminist by the name of “Big Red”. The anger of this woman poured out of my T.V. It was really that striking. But, as I heard the issues she raised, I heard the same old collectivist (nee Marxist) attack on the family.
My mind, much like those people telling me that I was sitting in the dark, searched back to where it heard these things together before.
I thought of several talks by Father Hardon in the 90s. Back then, what he called “homosexual mania” was not as apparent as it is today. I don’t remember rainbow flags in every city and on every corporate logo back then, at least. Back then, when he said that Catholics were killing their faith with contraception, people nodded, but it wasn’t as apparent as today.
Fr. Hardon Describes Sexual Suicide
Father Hardon defined this entire phenomenon as “sexual suicide” and he said it thus:
The expression “sexual suicide” is more than the title of a widely read book first published in 1973. It is a two word description of the chaos introduced into one once civilized country after another, including our beloved United States.
Rather than define sexual suicide, let us describe it as understood by those who recognize its terrifying implications.
- Sexual suicide is sexual liberation that has created a society hostile to the family and the institution of marriage. It is a society that fails to recognize the natural order of the male and female gender.
- Sexual suicide is the ultimate destination of “feminism”: female inferiority and familiarity and familial disintegration under the auspices of the sexual suicide stare.
- Sexual suicide is the pollution of a culture by false ideas and misused technology. The result is an erosion of love and family that reduces sex to a form of sexual message.
Similarly, therefore, sexual suicide is the wide spread virus of radical feminism that has penetrated the culture of so many Western nations.
It began with the false premise that the family is a form of male domination. Domineering men, masculine gender, invented the family in order to control the so-called weaker sex. Sexual suicide is masked under the name of women’s liberation. It pretends to restore to women the rights they have over men.
The deepest conflict is not between the rich and the poor or the capitalist and labor. It is, for Marx, the conflict between the man and the women. The great dream of Marx was to promote conflict between the two genders and thus provide for the progress of human society. Among the nations that have been deeply affected by this demonic lie, the United States stands as a world leader.
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Sexual suicide is the false philosophy of Karl Marx, which claims that the family is a creation of men who want to control women. Women must coincidentally rebel against this domination and assert their right to independence of masculine enslavement.
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We are on the road to sexual suicide because our acceptance of sex liberation further causes us to accept certain social anomalies as a result of sexual liberation. This includes the concept of “open marriage” that all responsibilities are split equally between the spouses; the high rate of divorce; the large number of fatherless children in broken homes, and women forced to compete in the job market while retaining family responsibilities. Not understanding the cause of these anomalies will cause us as a society to seek solutions that would put us further down the slippery slope of sexual suicide.
I think what people miss is the connection to rainbow pride parades and the celebration of this destruction and war among us.
I also think of Father Hardon’s talk on Prodigal Sons and Daughters wherein he complained that misguided ecumenism was exacerbating the sex revolution’s destruction of the family.
The Remedy Proposed by Father Hardon: Re-Christianize Society
For Father, the remedy was the same in each talk: re-Christianization.
How sexual suicide can be overcome? It can be overcome only by a re-Christianization of society. This re-Christianization is not as obvious as may seem. The wide spread sexual self-destruction so prevalent in once Christian countries is the result of millions abandoning their Christian faith. What happened? The result was inevitable. Marriage as a life long union of one man and one woman became a relic of past history. The family as a loving community of father, mother and children became a relic of a forgotten age.Women as devoted wives and mothers were mesmerized into becoming feminist leaders in the liberation from domination by an alleged male patriarchy. Children as the precious treasure whom husband and wife loved to bring into this world as the preparation for the eternal home to which families are destined became a burden which the state took into protective custody. The aged who were respected for their wisdom and rich experience became a liability.
All these monumental changes in society took place for the most obvious reasons. There can be no authentic family life, no true marital commitment, no loving propagation of children, no selfless care of the aged and the infirmed, except where there are believers in Jesus Christ who live up to their faith. We should have no illusions about the price that we Catholics have to pay to re-Christianize a widely de-Christianized society. So many forces are at work in the world to separate and divide the family in the name of individuality. The exaltation of individuality is camouflaged as personality.
Only a deep faith in Jesus Christ and trust in his power can make the humanly impossible divinely possible with the help of his grace. Selfishness, as the saints tell us, is cunning.
It pushes and insinuates itself into everything, while making us believe it is not there at all. This is the root cause of sexual suicide and its consequent break down of family life in so many materially over-developed countries in our day. Only the God who became a child and lived on earth as a member of a family could have inspired the selfless love that brought the Christian family into being. This same Jesus, we are confident, will reform the Christian family where it has weakened and even bring it back, where need be.
There is a practical problem here, though. We live in a time when those leading the Church say that the devil is just a human construct, and others say the conscience is the ultimate judge of moral issue, particularly sexual morality.
This bad dream we see in this world needs the Light of Jesus and grace. How badly we need to illumine the minds and hearts of not just those in society, but those in our very Church!!!
Say a Rosary for us. We’ve got work to do and we need the Blessed Mother’s help!
What are you doing towards this re-Christianization? (Raising God fearing children is an excellent answer, but if there’s more, let me know in the comments)
This article, Father Hardon: How to Stop the Sexual Suicide is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/father-hardon-stop-sexual-suicide/
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Thanks John…great article. The wisdom of Father Hardon is well appreciated and so eloquently direct. Let us have the courage and strength to live our Christian faith especially through our family life. With so many baby boomers getting older it would be beautiful to see people take in their elder parents and relatives and bring them into their daily lives. There are so many ways in which our society can encourage that. Bringing home an elderly or sick relative is not easy but can be done and should be encouraged and supported. No one wants to be in a nursing home – no one wants to die in a nursing home. I understand that for some people there is no other way but in many cases it is just an inconvenience to take in someone who is old or sick.Let’s be true Christian families and care for our own and teach our children that caring for others even if they are not family is part of our calling to be like Christ. I think that would be a help in reChristianizing the family and dissuading the selfishness that is so prevalent today. I applaud the wonderful families that do take such good care of their loved ones and are such a good example of selflessness. They inspire others and are changing the world. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Selfishness. It really is a root to this, isn’t it? And doesn’t it figure that fasting (an inherent cure for selfishness) is not obliged or practiced?
Raising your children to be God fearing is a good start, but also raise them to be passionate about God. By the time my daughter was 21, two of her close friends (one a former agnostic, the other a former atheist raised in an anti-Catholic family) had been received into the Church.
What Mary Francis said is so true as well. I want to share a story to go along with that, to show how that can work.
My mother-in-law was never crazy about me. She would’ve rather my husband hadn’t married me. Later in life she developed chronic health problems and would need frequent doctor’s visits. I knew her care would primarily fall on me (i was the only one not working at that time.) I was worried about how that would go. While we got along on a rather superficial level, we had no depth to our relationship. But there was no real option.
Over time she grew to trust me, and even to love me. She eventually trusted me enough to express her fear that she was a burden to me. By that time I loved her a great deal too, and pointed out that this relationship would never have happened had she not needed and allowed my help.
The other family members were pushing to get her admitted to a nursing home. She did have to go for a few weeks at a time on occasion. (She tended to fall and break bones.) She hated it there. Without our support, though, ultimately she probably would’ve had to stay in a nursing home.
When my mother-in-law was 85, she was received into the Church. Not that much later, she started attending daily Mass.
Because she and I were spending more time together, she also ended up seeing a bit more of my daughter. They became quite close as well. (When my daughter went off to college, my mother-in-law said, “Whatever am I going to do without you?”)
When, at age 89 she lay dying, she made it clear that she hoped that I would be at her side at the moment of her passing. I don’t know how much more clearly you can say “I love you.”
I know that caring for our elderly doesn’t always work out that well. But it can. While I would not wish chronic illness on anyone, it is such a call on all parties to grow in holiness. When it is difficult, always remember that God won’t be outdone in generosity.
Wow! Thank God and thank you for sharing that here! I see some good times ahead for you at our heavenly reunion!